odiousgambit's Blog

Newbie Embarrasses Self in Atlantic City

I don't see how I can resist checking out the new Table Games in Delaware that opened this week, and, yep, they are going to have Craps. I'm holding down my expectations, though... nonetheless, there will be a report!

After feeling stupid about not playing Craps in the Bahamas when I had a chance, I vowed to take advantage whenever such an opportunity came up again. So, when going to Ocean City Maryland to check out fishing charterboats with a couple of friends a solid 15 years ago, we decided to later hit a Casino in Atlantic City. One guy really wanted to go and actually made it sound one heck of a lot closer than it was; he was the only one who had experienced casino gambling and now I can see he really had an itch he needed to scratch. Unfortunately it never crossed his mind to tip the other two of us off that we really needed a little preparatory information beforehand. It was a toss into the deep water, sink or swim, something that probably amused him. [I loved the guy, actually; he's passed away now].

We hit the Taj Mahal. I approached the Craps Tables with a minimum of information; this was before the internet [for me that is]. I knew how to play Craps, but just that 7 or 11 won, 2,3 or 12 lost, and how the other numbers were resolved. And somehow I found out what the Passline was on a Craps Table, and that there were a ton of sucker bets to avoid. That was it! So I proceeded to pretend I knew what I was doing, knowing no etiquette whatsoever. Right away, of course, I get yelled at for doing stupid stuff like letting my hands hang down to the felt. Worse, when it was my turn to roll, I managed to let go of the dice twice to hear "No Dice!!" yelled out. First time, I threw them without making a bet. Next time, I'm thinking I have it all figured out and for extra good luck cupped the dice in my hands and let her go! Duh!

Somehow I managed to stay at the table without being asked to leave, determined to stay there and suffer through, realizing now I needed to have prepared for this! It wasn't long, though, before my friends wanted to leave anyway. Our experienced gambler, I think now, probably worked some system that busted his bankroll in record time at the BlackJack table, and for that matter we got there crazy late to begin with due to quite excessive travel time. We used the Lewes Delaware Ferry to cross into New Jersey. Brother, do not think that is just some short little hop; that ferry, including the wait of course, took forever!

I learned nothing about the bets in Craps I didnt already know. But I certainly found out I better learn some etiquette! About this time, I started using the internet. Surely about that time or soon after I came across the Wizard's site.

A future post will have to include the next time I played Craps, a little more informed and this was in Vegas.

Paradise Island Gets Stiffed

One thing since the last post, I want to use this as a place to keep a tally of how much I'm up or down for casino gambling. I have remembered another loss and since it is all trusted to memory, rounding it all up to "Down $500" to start with as of about 5 years ago ... additional figures will be more accurate. I keep having to remind myself there is no need to hide the fact I'm down. We are most of us anonymous here.

At one point it didn't look like Gambling was going to have much to do with me outside of things like the friendly poker game. Things that were available: state run lotteries, state run Keno, somewhat local slot machine parlors, and the like were not interesting to me. The Horses were the big disappointment, having held out some hope for that; see the first blog post.

I found myself some 15-20 years ago or so at Paradise Island, Nassau, in the Bahamas. I was there for Sun and Fun, and barely thought about the Casino. I had to admit, though, that there were times I was a bit bored. I knew the basic rules about playing Craps. And I knew Craps had a pretty fairly even bet. Nonetheless, I left there without making a single bet. After I got home and thought about it, I became convinced that it was really dumb to have sat there at the bar overlooking the Casino and not just walked up to the Craps area and had some fun. I vowed not to be so stupid next time around.

Next: well, when I finally played the first time, it didnt go so good. But it was progress!

Gambling Opportunities this Summer Part I

Well, my first Blog posting. I think it is the way to go rather than clog up the Forums with musings, and folks can ignore it if they choose.

I kind of have been wanting to keep track of wins/losses so let's start that too, figuring I'm down about $200 over the last 5 years or so, and before that there was nothing worth tracking [and no tracking of various friendly poker games]. So just Casino wins/losses.

One thing for sure, I'm a little surprised myself that I'm taking such an interest in Gambling these days. There were reasons to think it wouldn't happen. As far as family influence goes, it would be neutral to negative, knowing no relatives who gambled at all. My siblings and I got introduced to Poker as teenagers and took to it to a minor degree is all. Once I was a young adult, I knew some people who seemed to have fun going to The Track to bet on horses. So I wanted to give that a whirl.

I have to tell you that each and every time, few and far between, that I tried to enjoy myself at a Racetrack was a bust. Something always happened that made me *not* want to go back. This varied between being hassled by a maniac who threatened to kill me for sitting in his favorite seat to having to deal with pan-handlers. My last trip to a Track ticked me off with the attitude there that they were all about soaking patrons to the max: this was Rosecroft that has the Trotters in the DC area. When you drove into the place they charge you to just drive in the gate. Then they charge you to park. Then they charged you for a program [a must-have for horses]. Then to get away from the maniacs and panhandlers you paid to get to a nicer section. The appeal of betting against other bettors on the parimutuel basis had appeal [I didn't realize the rake was so high] but there was no question I would never be able to overcome being down $20 or so just getting to a
seat for the size bets I was going to be making.

I told myself I wasn't really a Gambler. I certainly wasnt having much fun tring to gamble on horses.

Part II will be about how Craps got my attention.